Needing attorney home builder problems East TN (Knoxville: credit, attorneys) - Tennessee - City-Data Forum

suttles · 02-06-2009, 05:52 PM

We just built a new home in 07. Our contractor is liscened and lives in the area.
I am east of Knoxville in the Jefferson County area, and could use a good attorney (if there are any) to hire so that the mistakes our contractor made can get repaired.

He did do some repairs and wants me to be quite about his mistakes but there are some problems he will not fix because it is going to be expensive for him, plus he did some double billing on a cost plus , he even charged us for over 10 hours work two months before we signed a contract.
Which he lost and we never got a copy of.

Thanks,
suttles

suttles · 02-10-2009, 03:13 PM

After asking anyone I could if they knew a attorney that we could hire to take our contractor to court, I finally talked with one today.

I had called several attorneys and I was told they would call me back, well today one did and he first ask if we had structural damage.

Other than out contractor notching the floor trusses and the main beam under the floor we don't have structural problems. They did rebrace this after we hired a inspector and sent the report to the contractor.

But we were double billed on somethings and if I could catch them they would credit our next billing but so many invoices would be missing and it was the worst confusion with paper work I have seen.
My daughter is a CPA and was a auditor and thought it was crazy.

We have a small farm and they took part of our top soil and now we have all kinds of erosion and our grading for footers was over 12K including septic.

Well this attorney said he got a 10K retainer and our repairs would most likely be in the 15K range.

We are going to file a complaint with the contractors board and TN consumers affairs.
It just stinks that he was such a crook to bill for hours and material that we didn't get.
I know this is fraud.
He used some old materials that was dated 04 and I know he didn't expect us to find it since it was hid by the insulation under the floor.

We had lived in middle TN for the past 15 years and built two houses living there and our builders were nothing like this one. There was not any stress to those houses and I was so glad to move back to east TN (home) but in 06-07 any of the contractors we talked to would only build cost plus.
So we paid $22.50/hr for each person on his crew and he charged 15% over anything that went into the building.
We started to realize that sometimes the workers would be running each other places and when we ask to see time sheets we were charged for hours while they were not working.
Our contractor even charged for 10.5 hours two months before we signed a contract with him.
I think he needs to be investigated but I don't know who does that sort of thing.
The building materials we had stolen I think he used on some other project, then we had to pay for them.
Our yard looks like it has a creek that goes around the house when it rains.
He put the soil to far up on the foundation and the inspector wrote that in the report so he made a attempt to lower it just to pass TN adopted codes.

Sorry for ranting but even if we didn't build a million dollar house to pay someone to make a mess out of your property and them over charge you is hard to swallow.

Suttles

leonard · 02-10-2009, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suttles

After asking anyone I could if they knew a attorney that we could hire to take our contractor to court, I finally talked with one today.

I had called several attorneys and I was told they would call me back, well today one did and he first ask if we had structural damage.

Other than out contractor notching the floor trusses and the main beam under the floor we don't have structural problems. They did rebrace this after we hired a inspector and sent the report to the contractor.

But we were double billed on somethings and if I could catch them they would credit our next billing but so many invoices would be missing and it was the worst confusion with paper work I have seen.
My daughter is a CPA and was a auditor and thought it was crazy.

We have a small farm and they took part of our top soil and now we have all kinds of erosion and our grading for footers was over 12K including septic.

Well this attorney said he got a 10K retainer and our repairs would most likely be in the 15K range.

See what you might be able to do in Small Claims Court. I do not know the limits in TN.

Barking Spider · 02-10-2009, 07:41 PM

I sent you a PM with an atty I have worked with

arbunk782 · 02-11-2009, 09:20 AM

If he took your topsoil and removed it from your property without permission that sounds like theft. You could call the police and see what they say about filing a complaint. Could you post or PM me the builder's name. I would like to know who this person is.

Beretta · 02-11-2009, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arbunk782

If he took your topsoil and removed it from your property without permission that sounds like theft. You could call the police and see what they say about filing a complaint. Could you post or PM me the builder's name. I would like to know who this person is.

Please don't post it on the forum. If you choose to share the name please do so privately due to liability issues for the owners of this forum. Thanks.